Person:Ralph Allen (2)

The English ancestry and New England descendants of Ralph Allen Jr. have been treated in several works, but the conclusions drawn have not been consistent or complete. The most recent work is the book "Ancestral Lines, Third Edition" by Carl Boyer, 3rd, published by the author, Santa Clarita, CA, 1998.

Ralph Allen was usually referred to as "junior," since he lived contemporaneously in Sandwich with his uncle, Ralph Sllen, Senior.

Ralph Allen was born about 1615 in England, but did not come to New England with his father. He was a wheelwright and a planter, according to available deeds.

He was probably the Ralph Allen in Boston on 4 June 1`639, when he was fined 10 pounds for releasing a servant before the expiration of his time (see "Massachusetts Bay Record Colony Court Records," 2:84). In 1643, he was listed as able to bear arms in Sandwich (see "Plymouth Colony Records," 8:192).

Ralph Allen never conformed to the established Sandwich church, and converted to the Quaker faith in 1657, which caused him civil difficulties. In 1658, he was deprived of his vote in the Sandwich town meeting, and in 1658 and 1658 he had 78 pounds of goods taken from him for refusing to swear to oaths and for attending the Friends Meeting. He was jailed in Boston in 1661.

He showed interest in the settlement of Dartmouth, a town founded in the western part of New Plymouth where the Quakers were allowed to worship in peace.

He bought one and one-half shares in the Dartmouth purchase in 1663 from Constant Southworth and Alice Bradford. In 1664, he contracted on behalf of all the purchasers with George Badcock and Henry Tucker to build a gristmill in Dartmouth. On 5 July 1669, he was granted to keep a ferry at or near Pocasset to privde passage to Rhode Island. He was listed as being "of Dartmouth" in some deeds. In 1672, he bought one-half share in Dartmouth from Sarah Warren.

He returned to Sandwich and was chosen surveyor of highways in May 1671 and again in May 1680.

Ralph Allen wrote a will on 18 December 1691, which was probated on 1 July 1698. His will directed that he be buried in the Friends Burying Place at William Allen's in Sandwich. The inventory of his estate was taken on 19 March 1697/8.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 George Allen, in Anderson, Robert Charles; George F. Sanborn; and Melinde Lutz Sanborn. The Great Migration: Immigrants to New England, 1634-1635. (Boston, Massachusetts: NEHGS, 1999-2011)
   I:28.